Sunday, March 16, 2008

"Paranoid Impulses"

"The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation, OK, it's just a fact," Rep. Sally Kern said recently to a gathering of fellow Republicans outside the Capitol.

"Studies show no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted, you know, more than a few decades. So it's the death knell in this country.

"I honestly think it's the biggest threat that our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat," she said.

The former school teacher has been a magnet for coast-to-coast condemnation, including a jab from comedian Ellen Degeneres, ever since someone posted her comments on the Internet last week. State police said they are investigating death threats against her.

Back home in the Bible Belt, though, the response has been mixed. Kern has gotten support from her fellow Republicans.

"I would submit to you that the vast majority of the folks in our caucus, particularly those who consider themselves conservative, stand with and support Sally," said state Rep. Randy Terrill.

...Kern, who is finishing her second term, has tried unsuccessfully to pass bills to rid libraries' children's sections of books that have homosexual themes. She told the group that school children are being indoctrinated by gay activists.

"We're not teaching facts and knowledge any more, folks," she said. "We're teaching indoctrination, OK, and they are going after our young children, as young as 2 years of age, to try to teach them a homosexual lifestyle is an acceptable lifestyle."

In the same speech, she said gays are "infiltrating city councils" across the country.

"It spreads, OK, and this stuff is deadly and it's spreading and it will destroy our young people," she said. "It will destroy this nation."

Kern has refused to back down from her statements but says she's not gay-bashing. I suppose she means in the actual, literal, clubbing-people-to-death sense.

Kudos to Captain Ed Morrisey for refusing to condone this kind of hate speech, writing in his new venue at Hot Air that Republicans "at some point have to distance themselves from those whose paranoid impulses lead them to these extremes." I admire Ed's writing a lot and even when I don't agree with him (often) I commend his general integrity. We can all be guilty of emotionally playing to the peanut gallery now and again, but Ed tends to do it less frequently than most.

So far, at least, his Hot Air commenters are broadly in agreement with him. I suspect he'd have had more disagreement if he had called out those who believe that liberals or immigrants or Islam (not just the extreme terrorist's version) would like to "destroy this nation" as having just as much a case of "paranoid impulses". But, thankfully, bashing gays, Jews or blacks simply isn't as acceptable as it used to be even in conservative circles. Some progress, at least. One day, the GOP will be dragged kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat.

Update Oh dear. Five hours later and Ed's comments thread has gone rapidly downhill as the AirBags weigh in. For instance:

Over the millennia, history has not been kind to homosexuals, but they keep trying hoping to come up with a different result.

It is said by psychiatrist that people who do that are in the throes of insanity.

I can agree with the statement that “homosexuality is a greater threat to America than terrorism.”

Today, terrorists are not invading the social fabric of our society such as our legal system, political system, and school system, just to name a few.

As in every past society that was plagued by homosexuality, a day of reckoning will come and it will not be a pretty sight. Just ask IRAN.

and:

It doesn’t matter if you believe that now or not…the point is you know when you sin and you know that it is wrong.

Yes I do think the teachings of God should be a dominant force in politics if only to prevent us from instituting sin as our law.

I do not believe that there will be a perfect government until Christ returns after the Great Tribulation.

Issues have divided Americans into Republicans and Democrats; my cousins, after decades as ardent churchgoers, have segregated humanity into those who have accepted Jesus and those who have not. In their view, President George W. Bush has been born again in Christ, Senator Obama hasn't, and, as Trudy Hester, my father's brother's daughter, tells me in her beautiful new home on her immaculate, multi-racial street, "It's people like us who know the difference."

Their faith is infinite and inflexible; an election year adds the dimension of patriotic duty and temporal influence. Trudy's husband, Frank Hester, is the Treasurer of the Republican Party here in Fort Bend County and a Precinct Chairman in Missouri City, population 60,000. Trudy and Frank serve as Election Officials on voting day. (Back in Maryland, so do I.) Frank is likely to be a delegate to the Texas Republican convention in June. They are the Religious Right personified, with a two-car garage and a one-way view of candidates and candor.

I ask them about the African-American Democrat who is likely to be on the November ballot, and the patently false yet prevalent rumour that he is an adherent of Islam.